


you put on the music and we danced to the end of the world

by smoke_rings_and_paper_dolls



Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Day6 - Freeform, Jaehyungparkian, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, apocalypse by cigarettes after sex, i love making myself cry, jaehyungparkian au, parkian, parkian au, post-apocalyptic fiction, this is pure fluff dw, yeah i love parkian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:21:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27839044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smoke_rings_and_paper_dolls/pseuds/smoke_rings_and_paper_dolls
Summary: they're alone and they have each other. jae finds music, younghyun finds reason.
Relationships: Kang Younghyun | Young K/Park Jaehyung | Jae
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	you put on the music and we danced to the end of the world

**Author's Note:**

> this one has been in my drafts fully completed for so long ?? im not sure why ?? took something outta me though, hope you enjoy :)  
> definitely recommended to be listened to along with apocalypse by cigarettes after sex, nice listen. if u find some ambience versions online that would be better (maybe. dont take my word for it lmao)  
> pls dont tell me if u hate it, im fragile <3

they tell the time by the color of the sky behind the clouds.

it was jae who taught him to tell; he was the smarter of the two. well, not smarter, but he tinkered a lot and he used to read a lot of books and he even wore glasses; younghyun thinks he is the smartest person in the world. whats left of the world.

he lifts a hand to the low-lying fog, allowing the mist and ash and water droplets to condense on the leather fingers of his gloves that protect his hand, and he drags his damp fingers across the apple of his cheeks, the only exposed part of his face. its half-past afternoon, he notes, the purple of the sky fading into evening pink-orange.

he inhales shortly, his seventh breath of the day, the second and last of the minute, and he knows he only has fifty five more to go before he’ll have to return back to the arboretum, but he just wishes he could have more time. isn’t that what they all wanted; more time?

how ironic that time was the only thing they were left with now.

him and jae, jae and him.

they’d long since stopped looking for,,, more.

the sky outside the arboretum gave them sixty two careful breaths of time every day before they were wracked with cough, the arboretum where they now lived had trees that were watered every week by the torrents and the trees gave them sustenance and jae had tinkered them a purifier and jae had younghyun.

younghyun wasn’t worth much, but jae always said he had a beautiful smile, and jae lost his temper with a lot of things but never with younghyun, and he cried a lot, but never because of younghyun; and sometimes he would sit and listen when younghyun would sing, and he always commented on how beautiful younghyun sounded.

their relationship was far from symbiotic in younghyun’s eyes, but jae looked at him like he was worth more than the world.

younghyun looks down at his rag-clad palms, his ashy skin underneath, and below all that, blood that pulses red- his last shred of humanity.

and jae, he thinks. his jae.

twenty five breaths; he has so many thoughts to think.

instead, he pushes up, grabbing his log for support when his knees give out underneath him. he makes his way back to the glass walls of the arboretum. he lets himself in when jae doesn’t respond to his buzzing. there is a song in his mind, from back when they had songs to sing.

he strips the rags away from his skin, careful winding motions that bring some peace to his mind. _like a helicopter_ , his mind calls out, and he is struck by the strange memory of whirring motors and slicing blades and… flying?

he thinks that maybe there was a time back then when he could fly if he wanted too, he remembers being able to touch the clouds and remembers holding pure ice in his hands. he opens up his palms to see, the flesh marred by burns and scars from having to survive each day, from having to live and from having to keep jae alive. he turns them over, inspects the once golden-skin that someone from the past had commented looked like sunlight.

it looks more like the moon now.

“brian” -a breathless word breaks him out of his thoughts. the only person around who would and could call him that silly name.

its him, jae.

younghyun smiles at him, a mimicry of something they’d seen in a book, a movie; they had to teach themselves how to smile one day after years of forgetting how to be happy.

“jae” he says, and he splays his hand open.

“you’re back early. sixty two breaths too much for you ?” its teasing, humorous; younghyun recognizes the tone with ease, he plays along with jae’s game.

“the less we’re out the better; what a shame, the sunset out there would be pretty if it weren’t for the dust and poison,” he says in a breathless way, because it’s a joke, of sorts. sarcasm, observational humor, an edge of truth- it’s a strange sort of exercise to remind themselves that they’re still human.

“I found another box” jae says, and true to his word, a box is in his hands. “its supposed to play music”

younghyun stares, and jae complies.

“I named it brian” he explains, and younghyun grants him a smile for it, “-and listen”

that’s when younghyun notices the trail of wires leading away from where the box is cradled in jae’s arms and connected into his generator, the ancient whirring thing that is the lovechild of jae’s curiosity and talent. he watches wordlessly as jae plugs in a wire, twists a knob and pulls a dial. he jiggles it a bit, and to younghyun’s horror, something inside it rattles.

jae sets it down expectantly, and as younghyun watches he tinkers with the mechanism for a minute, and then-

“music” the hushed whisper leaves younghyun’s like a breath he’d never meant to take, a careful exhale, and he feels something stirring in his chest.

its soft, echoing and faded. the voice is grainy, there is a faint drum behind someone’s voice, and the trumpet sounds like its floating out from underwater but its pulling something deep and powerful from behind younghyun’s sternum and he can’t _breathe_ now, his knees are buckling out under him and he feels like he’s going to fall, he feels like he’s going to _cry_ , and then a set of familiar arms are slipping under his arms, around his waist and clasping into fists at the small of his back and-

“hey. brian”

its him, jae.

“jae” he whispers, and he didn’t even know there were tears pooling at the corners of his eyes, hot and heavy, before they were cutting lines into his skin, pushing past and over layers of grime and sorrow that would never wash out, and his heart feels bare, it feels empty.

“I know this” he says, and now jae is smiling and jae is turning red, and younghyun has his nose buried into the fabric of jae’s worn out hoodie and its growing damp with the force of his emotions but he can’t help it, he can’t help it because he knows this song.

he knew this song from a very very long time ago, from back when they would sit in circles with a common guitar, and they would echo the words to each other with the biggest smiles and the sheer memory of it all is enough to grip onto his heart and squeeze the life right out of him.

he thinks, if jae and him could have that back.

he would’ve given anything to have that back.

and then he is reminded of a curled hand at the small of his back- a tinkerer’s hand- and he is reminded of frames that have snapped and been taped together and snapped and taped together, and a lilting smile that has seen the end of the world, and pale milky skin covered in soot and he decides he wouldn’t just give _anything_.

he slings his arm over jae’s shoulder, the tears still fresh in his eyes, and he whirls that beloved lanky frame around in their lonely little world, and he smiles like he could save the world if he smiled hard enough.

they press together, jae’s shoulder into younghyun’s chest and now theyre swaying like they supposed people did before them, and they’re smiling into each other’s skin and pretending like the tears don’t exist, they’re pretending the end of the world never happened and everything is normal.

they pretend until they’re not lonely anymore, because jae has younghyun and younghyun has jae, and they have this world.

the record plays over, and it plays over, and it plays over and over and over until they’re collapsing into each other, and outside them the sun is setting on their unforgiving and unforgiven world.

but no matter for the death and loneliness and sorrow.

they found life here.


End file.
